June 2009 Archive

Tuesday’s Digital Britain report covers a lot of ground and I’ll leave it to my colleagues to cover much of it, but I’ll focus here on the parts which refer most directly to the music industry.

The interim draft was a master class in nuanced, caveat-drenched civil servant speak that carefully avoided making a definitive call in any one direction.The final report thankfully takes a more direct approach but many music industry executives will feel that the tone is struck firmly in the favour of the ISPs.

The report starts off with reaffirmation of the interim report’s assertions that the current digital market place is struggling and needs a framework of support to protect and uphold Intellectual Property (IP) in the digital domain, stating:

“The content industry faces a significant challenge. At its heart the current model is not working.”

And goes onto recognize the difficulty of monetizing consumption and the need:

“to turn a strong user base into hard currency.”

It even takes a very strong line on IP violation:

“The Government believes piracy of intellectual property for profit is theft and will be pursued as such through the criminal law.”

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We hear a lot about the exciting stuff that US marketers are doing in social media, but it's important to realise that, whilst consumers in many markets in Europe may not be quite as active as US consumers (even though over half of online Europeans use social media regularly, and my next report will be looking at our brand new 2009 Social Technographics data, so watch this space!) a lot of interesting experimentation is happening here in Europe too. My latest report "The Practicalities of Social Media Marketing" highlights some of them, with case studies from Daimler, Ford, Carphone Warehouse and Innobasque, showing how these brands are reaching out to, talking to and supporting consumers in Europe using social media.

For example, Daimler shared with us how their blog works to engage stakeholders both internally and externally, whilst Ford and their agency We Are Social reached out to influencers in the arts world to spread awareness of the new Ford Fiesta through the This Is Now strategy, generating over 40,000 submissions so far (you can also read more information on the case study here)

During the past week I’ve had the privilege of presenting to two
different organizations that I think B2B marketers would benefit from
exploring further:

June 3, 2009 I spoke at the MOCCA quarterly meeting, held at Adobe’s facilities in downtown San Jose. The Marketing Operations Cross-Company Alliance (MOCCA) is a community for sharing practical experience between Marketing Operations professionals in technology companies.

I've spent the last few months immersed in the world of the Web design capabilities of interactive agencies. After all that work, finally, The Forrester Wave: Interactive Marketing Agencies -- Web Design Capabilities, Q2, 2009 is live. Hurrah!!

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I was just looking at a receipt in an email update from B&H Photo in New York. They encouraged me to get an update of my order's status on my cell phone. So, I typed in a long order number and sent the message off to the short code 22634.

I received an SMS back with my order number and a tracking number. The order number was "live" so to speak - I clicked on it and it tried to iniative a phone call. Stupid. The order number wasn't a link to ANYTHING?!?!?!!? Not a quick link to FedEx or UPS. Simply a number. I guess when I can copy/paste on my iPhone in another few weeks, this could prove to be useful information.

In any case, "tracking number" DOES NOT EQUAL "status update." What a terrible user experience and a missed opportunity. Maybe they'll say that they are only part way through the integration into their back end systems, but really, this was lame.

Being the CXP analyst who focuses on the needs of seniors, I get a lot of questions about accessibility. And I'll admit I can see the connection. Among the other issues that most people face as they get older are decreasing eyesight and hearing. But most seniors don't consider themselves disabled. They find ways to work around their failing eyesight and less acute hearing (we've all seen -- or been -- the guy holding the menu at arm's length in the dim restaurant lighting). But seniors won't bother to find a work-around if the technology in question doesn't tempt them with a strong enough value proposition to squint through the small font or risk a misclick. And I don't mean a value proposition that a company wants to sell; I mean one that the senior wants to buy. Because the senior will have to pay for it -- if not with money, then with the time it takes to learn how to use your solution.